The present invention relates to an apparatus for calming or dissipating surface waves, particularly for the protection of floating or fixed structures or coasts, comprising a floatable carpet made from a plurality of floating bodies consisting of motor vehicle tires, interconnected by cables or chains, and arranged in juxtaposed, successive rows.
An apparatus of this type is known from the German journal "Meerestechnik", February 1977, p. 26, in which a plurality of vertical vehicle tires combined to form a floating carpet are used as wave breakers. The tires are interconnected by means of cables or chains. Due to the fact that in this floating carpet the vehicle tires are positioned vertically, such a floating carpet cannot be used for preventing sand movements on the sea or ocean bed particularly in the vicinity of the coast, because such a floating carpet, if lowered on to the ocean bed, will not be laid out thereon, because in the lowered state the individual tires would assume the most varied angular positions relative to one another on the ocean bed, so that they would be exposed to the current and consequently the floating carpet lowered on to the ocean bed would be carried along by the current and certainly no adequate anchoring to the ocean bed is ensured. Such a floating carpet cannot stop sand movements on the ocean bed. In addition, the vehicle tires of this floating carpet as a result of their vertical arrangement therein, only project by a very small portion above the water surface, so that it can in no way be ensured that wave energy will be dissipated over a large area.
Another floating carpet construction is described in U.S. Pat. No. 1,933,597. In this case, the floating carpet comprises floating bodies joined together in the form of a U, which are constructed as hollow bodies and are interconnected in such a way that a wave-calmed water zone is formed within the water surface bounded by the floating carpet and serves as a landing surface for watercraft, the individual floating bodies of the U-shaped floating carpet surrounding the wave-calmed water zone in enclosure-like manner. The thus obtained floating carpet has wave-breaking characteristics for obtaining a wave-calmed inner zone. However, such a floating carpet cannot be lowered on to the ocean bed and in no way is suitable for preventing sand movements there.